


Onward & Outward

by dogbreath333



Series: Ino, ephemeris [3]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, Uzushiogakure | Hidden Eddy Village, brought to you by apple of my eye by badfinger, this is my ensemble christmas movie only it's about naruto and a funeral
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2020-12-16 09:37:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21034151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dogbreath333/pseuds/dogbreath333
Summary: If you shouted down a deep well all the names of Ino's loved ones, the echoes would return for a lifetime.Part III of Ino, ephemeris(“I miss Ino,” Shikamaru says, because it’s not a non sequitur, not really. The truth can be easy, easy as lying, when shared with a friend.)





	1. Inochika

**Author's Note:**

> This won't make any bloody sense unless you've read part I and II of Ino, ephemeris.

When Inochika heard the news, she fled towards her father.

She’s halfway to Sunagakure now, at the point where one might typically turn north towards Konohagakure, if that were their destination. And it is—her destination, anyway. Chi knows logically that she’s going the wrong way. And she knows, on a deeper level, that she ought to be with her mothers right now.

But Tsunade is dying.

And that’s shit-scary. So she blows past Konoha, and to Suna she goes.

It’s Chi’s preference to travel slowly whenever possible, like a civilian. It’s one of the pleasures of growing up in peacetime—there’s rarely anything to run to. But now, Chi takes to the trees and the world blurs around her, from the crystalline blues of Uzushio, to an earthy green-brown, to the washed out haziness of the desert.

_ Home,  _ she catches herself thinking. And then scowls, because it’s difficult to know whether that's true or not, when you’ve grown up in so many places.

Kicking up a storm of sand as she runs dead-out through the desert feels good though, and it feels even better to redirect her anxiety into action. So she tables the identity-politicking for later. It doesn’t matter now.

* * *

Temari greets her at the gates, the damn witch. Chi doesn’t bother asking how Temari knew she’d come, just lets her aunt bundle her up in a strong embrace. It’s easy, between them. The less words said, the better—they understand each other just fine like this.

Temari leads Chi through the city with an arm thrown around Chi’s shoulder. She even buys Chi’s favorite dumplings from a food cart, like Chi’s still a little kid.

“Soft,” Chi accuses her aunt through a full mouth. “You’re doting.”

“Doting, maybe. Soft?” Temari grins, all teeth. “Never.”

“Where’s Kankuro?” Chi asks, because she knows that Temari will know that she actually means,  _ where’s my father? _

“They’re brooding like hens at the temple. If that’s all I have to look forward to, I’ll never retire.”

Chi doesn’t argue. They both know that retirement is good for Gaara. If all he does in a day is look to the sky and pray, he’ll still consider it a day well spent. And that’s fine by Inochika. Her father deserves some peace.

And lord knows there’s no peace to be found under the weight of that damned hat. He’s passed it off now, to a kunoichi who speaks gently and carries a sharp whip. It’s the first time the leader of the village hasn’t been chosen from the Kazekage clan.  _ Thank god it’s over _ , Chi thinks. Now her family can rest.

Temari and Chi amble companionably toward the temple district. It’s a relief to be here, Chi realizes.  _ Home, fine, fuck it.  _ It’s home, where the girls who wash the feet of pilgrims actually make a comfortable living; where the vendors are hawking their anointing oils, and Chi spares a coin for nothing more than a thumb’s smear of cinnamon oil across her brow, and a blessing from the crone who offered it; home, where the temple gates rise up massively, and those who pass through find nothing to greet them but the vastness of the desert spilling out towards the horizon.

This, Inochika knows, is how the people of the Land of Wind pray. No churches, no rituals. Just footfalls drumming against the sand and breath mingling with the air. 

And the former Kazekage is nothing if not devout. Gaara is sat cross-legged with a group of children, holding their rapt attention. Temari and Chi don’t interrupt, but Kankuro catches sight of them from his post, where he fashions brooms out of palm fronds—they’ll serve to wipe away all traces of human presence from the temple once the sun has set.

Kankuro saunters over, slings an arm around Chi’s shoulder and pulls her into a one-armed hug. “Hey you,” he says, and tousles her hair. 

Chi leans into him. “Hey.”

“How ya holdin’ up?”

“I’m okay,” Chi shrugs. “It just sucks.”

“Yeah, it does,” Kankuro murmurs, and pats Chi’s back a bit awkwardly before letting her go. “Lady Tsunade’s a badass. It’s weird to think of her bein’ sick. Hey, I think your dad’s wrapping it up with those kids.”

Inochika takes the hint and steps forward, out of the shadow of the gates and into the orange-red glow of the setting sun. Her father’s already vivid hair suddenly catches fire. Not a hint of white on his head, yet her mothers are both already going grey at the temples.

Chi twists her own sea of mahogany hair over her shoulder, and finds herself thinking of heredities. She’s had so many influences in her life, Tsunade not least among them. She thinks of her mothers, myriad aunts and uncles and cousins, related either by blood or by covenant. She steps closer to her father. She’s only got the one.

He’s speaking to the kids, something between a story and a prayer. “From the time our race was young, seekers of counsel have ventured into the desert to receive its wisdom. Path-marker, way-shower,” he says, and the children echo him. “What should I do?”

And all Chi can say to that is  _ hallelujah, I guess.  _

* * *

  
  


It’s one of the great blessings of Chi’s life that wherever she goes, no matter what, there always seems to be someone waiting to greet her at the threshold. 

It’s no different in Konoha than it was in Suna. In fact, Akimichi Chocho probably had to fight half a dozen people for the privilege.

But there she stands, lazily twirling a kunai and looking rather tight-jawed. “You stayed away too bloody long,” she says first.

“Oh, I dunno, Cho. They’re running me ragged in Uzushio,” Chi jokes in the rhyming quasi-meter that Chocho’s parents sometimes inexplicably adopt. 

Chocho rolls her eyes and pulls Inochika in for a quick hug. “Bullshit. Don’t pretend like you layabouts are doing any actual state-building over there.”

“Ask Karin. Or Naruto. I’m certainly not.”

“Well, you ought to be. You have the brain for it.”

“Yeah. Just not the stomach.”

“Okay, okay. Let’s table it.”

“Where’s Shikasuma?”

“Mission. She’ll be home soon. Come back to mine for tea? Before all the sad shit starts?”

Chi can’t say no to that. So they walk, and Chi finally speaks her mind. “So am I going to meet this husband of yours?”

“That’s the plan.”

“I can’t believe you got married.”

“I can’t believe you didn’t come to the wedding.”

“I can’t believe you didn’t invite me.”

“I can’t believe you actually believe that.” Chocho stops short in the middle of the street, and the passerby part around them like it’s nothing. It’s not nothing, though. “Chi, you  _ hid. _ You left Konoha and it was fine, because you needed to and it was good for you—and I get it, there’s a big wide world out there that you wanted to see, and then there was Uzushio. But do you know how it felt, when the letters started getting fewer and fewer? It felt like shit. I know, I  _ know,”  _ Chocho holds up a hand to ward off interruption. “I know you have to be alone sometimes. But it was too much this time. We missed you.”

Chi wavers. The thing is, Konoha is so damn familiar right now. Summertime, evening, the shops closing down, people heading home. The kids are being called in from the street and the mothers are putting aside the day’s work and looking, now, toward dinner. Everything’s quieting, collapsing in on itself, softening. So many little reminders of Chi’s youth. Even the god damn argument feels familiar.  _ But shouldn’t I have outgrown that part by now?  _ Inochika wonders. So with nothing else to do, she drops her cool.

“I missed you too,” Chi says, and has to look away.

“Shhh,” Chocho is saying. “It’s okay.” Chi realizes that maybe she’s crying a little bit. But it doesn’t matter. Chocho lets Chi bury her head between Chocho’s shoulder and neck—if she is crying, no one has to know.

* * *

“What’s he like?” Chi asks later, as they meander the long way home to Chocho’s house on the Akimichi compound. 

“Weeeell,” Chocho hedges. “His name is Mitsushige. He’s a civilian.”

“No way,” Chi blurts out.

“I knew you were gonna be weird about it!”

“No, I’m thrilled!”

“That’s what I mean! Why?”

“You know why—oh, I don’t know. Shinobi have too much baggage. What does he do?”

“He’s a writer. A journalist.”

“Which paper?”

“....the Hagakure Post-Gazette.”

Chi’s jaw drops. “Wait, so why does he like you?”

Chocho chokes. “Screw you!”

“I mean—that’s kind of a radical paper…”

“Less so these days.”

“I suppose.”

“God, you’re right though,” Chocho relents. “He’s way too cool for me. He’ll lose all his street cred once I take the hat.”

Chi sighs. “Too many fucking Kages in my life.”

“Technically,” Chocho argues, “I’ll be the only Kage in your life. Your parents deserve a vacation.”

“Retirement is good for my dad,” Chi agrees. “But I don’t want to know what Haruno Sakura looks like at loose ends.”

“Fair,” Chocho shrugs. “I’m coming for her job, whether she likes it or not, though.”

“Who’re you thinking of for top aide?”

“Don’t laugh.”

“...oh no.”

“Yep.”

“Shinya,” Chi groans.  _ Nara fucking Shinya.  _ “God, no. You’re fucked from the jump.”

“Admit it, he’s wasted on academia.”

“No, he’s  _ perfect  _ in academia. We should  _ leave  _ him there.”

“It’s been a while since you’ve seen him. Maybe you’ll come around,” Chocho says enigmatically. 

“I don’t like what you’re implying,” Chi says. The Akimichi compound emerges up ahead out of the evening gloom. “Anyway, it was nice seeing you, but I think they need me in Uzushio—”

“Shush,” Chocho laughs, and steers Chi through the gate.

* * *

It’s fully night by the time Chi manages to part ways with Chocho and Mitsushige.

Chi approves, by the way. They’re well-suited to each other. The whole house had been strewn with scrolls, academic journals, exhaustive data-sets—Chi didn’t know there was anyone out there who could match Chocho for consumption of knowledge. She  _ is _ an Akimichi after all. The thing is, Chocho’s both a genius of hard work,  _ and  _ a genius. But Mitsushige takes it to a whole different level.

_ “I’m intellectually rigorous,” _ he’d explained, and tossed a wink towards Chocho, who’d blushed and nearly spat out her tea. It was, Chi decided, far too much information. 

So when Chi slips out, with a hug from Chocho on the doorstep and a whispered, _ “give Tsunade my love,”  _ Chi’s feeling warm and light. Until the door closes, lights out in all the houses, lonely. 

But the door opens again just as quickly, and Chocho scolds, “hey, don’t stand on the stoop all night. Go to the hospital.”  _ Isn’t it enough to be known?  _ Chi ponders, and rallies her spirits, and steps out into the night.

There’s a crispness in the air.  _ It’s nearly September.  _ Chi got the news about Tsunade almost a whole month ago. Chi knows that the days wasted between then and now were spent staring at the letter with Naruto in Uzushio, or hiding herself away in Suna. And she knows, at this point, that nothing can be done to reverse the course of things. 

She sprints the rest of the way to the hospital all the same.

* * *

Tsunade looks like shit. Like she’s dying, really actually dying now.

“Not a word,” Tsunade warns Chi, a ghost of humor crossing her ravaged face.

And Inochika honors that request, because she never got to have any grandparents. Sakura’s parents had died unremarkably before Chi’s birth, Ino’s family had been taken by the Great War, and Gaara’s parents… Well. That’s a whole different can of worms.

So really, there’s only been Tsunade, for Chi.

Sakura and Ino stand up simultaneously from the creaky hospital chairs, Ino to kiss Chi’s forehead and murmur, “ _ welcome home,”  _ Sakura to briefly squeeze Chi’s hand, eyes averted. 

“Where’s Naruto?” Tsunade asks, as if just noticing his absence. 

Sakura frowns mightily, but Chi ignores it and settles at Tsunade’s side, perching at the edge of the hospital bed. “He’ll come. He’s scared, Granny,” Chi shrugs. “He’s just scared.”  _ I was too. _

“Coward,” Tsunade accuses. “I’m the one dying, and I’m not scared. What does he have to be scared about?”

“Not scared at all, Tsunade-sama?” Ino asks, bizarrely, curiously. She’s always kept it professional with Tsunade, never shared the deep bond of master and apprentice like the woman did with Sakura, didn’t share Uzumaki blood like she and Naruto did.

“No, Ino,” Tsunade laughs. “Not at all.”

Sakura recovers, then. Takes the seat next to her daughter and smiles at Chi for the first time. “Tsunade,” Sakura says, “do you remember when we—” And Chi closes her eyes and loses herself in a memory.


	2. Sakura

Sakura tosses and turns until the night is thick as soup.

Ino tries, she does. Although, she’s really got no other choice—neither of them have ever given up and taken the couch, not in all the years they’ve been together. They’re not going to start now. So Ino fills a warm towel with lavender for Sakura’s head, and waits it out.

They both finally fall asleep just before dawn, Sakura’s brow smoothing out almost all at once. It’s like the feeling of wool being pulled over their whole house. The peace that overtakes Sakura can only mean one thing—but Ino’s content to let sleep nose at the edge of her consciousness. If it’s what Ino thinks it is, it can wait until morning.

* * *

It’s the scent of coffee that eventually rouses Sakura.  _ Strange.  _ Ino’s still asleep in bed, and Inochika’s been staying with Shikasuma the past couple of days. 

Sakura throws on a robe and walks, mostly unconcerned, to the kitchen. It’s been a long time since anything has posed her a physical threat, and even so—enemies don’t know where to find the good coffee and set it brewing. But then— _ oh,  _ Sakura thinks, halting in the doorway. She belts her robe a bit more snugly.

It’s not that Sakura doesn’t  _ like  _ the woman. And true, trust has bloomed between them with the passing of the years. But still—there’s always just a thread of awkwardness that runs between Sakura and Uzumaki Karin.

“Morning,” Karin says lightly, leaning back against the counter and nursing a steaming cup of coffee between her palms. Still in that same goofy get-up, and yet Sakura has to suppress a grumble at how good Karin still looks at nearly fifty. So she merely nods a greeting, and goes to pour her own cup.

On the way, she glances over the back of the couch. Naruto and Sasuke are sprawled out under a blanket, Naruto’s head tucked under Sasuke’s chin. They’re all elbows and knees, like they’re twelve again, sleeping rough on a C-rank with Kakashi-Sensei.

“Did you knock me out last night?” Sakura realizes, startled.

Karin snorts. “That’s not something I do.”

“Bullshit. I was tossing and turning and then suddenly I was sleeping like a baby. I know the extent of your chakra control, don’t front.”

Karin’s mouth twitches, betraying her. “Maybe you just felt at peace in our presence.”

_ There’s an idea. _ Sakura reaches down to gently take Naruto’s wrist and wake him, but the moment she touches him, Sasuke’s eyes crack open instead.  _ Like they share a nervous system. _

“Hi,” Sasuke croaks, then scowls at the sound of his own voice.

And Sakura can’t help it. She laughs. No matter how shitty she feels, they can still make her smile. These moments are so hard-won, Sakura knows. This was never guaranteed, so she never takes it for granted. There may have been days in the past when winning the war almost,  _ almost _ felt pyrrhic. She knows now of course that it wasn’t, knows every smile, every laugh is the gentle lapping of water at her feet, ripples advancing from the past to catch up to her, the effect of stones thrown into a still pond by her own hand, long ago. 

Everything that’s ever happened to them is worth it for the grumpy look on Sasuke’s face. So yes, she laughs, long and loud enough to wake Naruto and Ino both.

It’s nice, later, when the five of them are sitting quietly with their coffees. Nice, but not quite right. So when Karin yawns dramatically, Sakura doesn’t call her out for the three cups of coffee she’s had. 

“Didn’t sleep a wink, just sat up all night,” Karin explains, half-heartedly.

“I’ll get you settled in Chi’s room, she’s staying with a friend,” Ino offers, and the two women slip out of the kitchen. 

And then it’s just the three of them.  _ Almost perfect. _

But Sakura has willed a thousand things into perfection. Tsunade showed her how. So when Kakashi—long past his window-entry days—walks in the front door, Sakura doesn’t wonder at the beautiful coincidence of it.

This life is what she built of it with her own two calloused hands.

Sakura rises to her feet and puts on another pot of coffee.

* * *

Sakura is there, of course, when Tsunade passes. It was a duty owed. But once it’s done, she relinquishes her grip on the now lifeless thing, so that Naruto and Karin can be alone with what used to be Sakura’s master.

Sakura doesn’t ask any questions. Naruto and Karin have dug long and deep in the ruins of Old Uzushio. And there are things to be done now, Sakura is told. “Uzumaki shit,” Naruto shrugs, half-joking through his grief. But Karin looks solemn as an owl. It makes Sakura shiver to think of the secrets the two of them have now, from her, even from Sasuke.

But it’s easy enough to let that particular cup pass from her, especially when there’s a state funeral to set in motion. It’ll be done in the Senju style, and the city will be awash in an ocean of flowers and gorgeously winding wood abstractions, courtesy of an army of Yamanakas and one very dogged Yamato-Senpai. 

Sakura will be glad when the whole damned affair is over, when the body has lain in state, when the funeral pyre has blazed and cooled, when the citizens of Konoha are back in their homes and putting out offerings to the newly dead.

Only then will Sakura, in the company of Shizune, take the ashes to a quiet place in the forest, where Senju Tsunade can rest.

* * *

  
  


All the earth’s signs point to how quickly the late summer of Inochika’s arrival bled into the autumn of the funeral and the endless tasks that came with it—but Sakura still can’t quite believe winter is here, even with the chill in the air as contrast to the steam curling off of her and Chocho’s stiff cups of green tea, made even stiffer by splashes of whiskey from the flask in Shikamaru’s coat pocket.

“If this is any indicator of what’s to come, I weep for the future of Konoha under the Akimichi administration,” Shikamaru drawls.

“Hypocrite,” Nara Shinya mutters, then snatches the flask from his father and takes a long pull from it.

And thus begins the first official meeting of the Hokage’s transition team, outside in the cold, in folding chairs, and drinking whiskey to boot. The team consists of the current Hokage, the future Hokage, and both of their top aides—who happen to be father and son. Between the two women runs the common thread of their love for Inochika. And of course, everything always comes back to Ino-shika-cho, eventually.  _ Six degrees of bullshit,  _ Sakura thinks fondly. 

They talk each other in circles until the bats come out and fill the air, winging about to and from their inscrutable errands. The four of them are drunk on whiskey and logistics by the time Shikamaru caps his flask and rises languidly to clap Chocho on the shoulder and say, “you’ll do a fine job, kid.”

Chocho lifts the corner of her mouth in a smile and her eyes twinkle at the praise.  _ She’s the best of Konoha,  _ Sakura can’t help but think.

But Shinya’s not done yet. “Of course she’ll do a fine  _ job.  _ But a Hokage’s real job should be to put themselves  _ out  _ of a job.”

Shikamaru just puts his face in his hands and groans, but Sakura leans in. “That so?”

Chocho raises a hand to halt Shinya before he really gets going. “I wouldn’t necessarily put it that way. But now’s not the time for a traditional Hokage’s show of brute strength or militarism. Your regime rebuilt the city and secured peace, Sakura-sama. I won’t squander the opportunity you’ve given us. We’ll democratize while we have the stability for it. We need civilian voices in our government. We need reform. I won’t put myself out of a job, but I will raise the people of Konoha up to stand beside me while the peace endures.”

“Nothing endures,” Shikamaru grumbles. “Least of all peace.”

“Well,” Chocho shrugs, and lets just a flicker of her sharp chakra unspool in the night air. “If that’s the case, I’ll be ready. My politics are not the only reason why I was chosen.”

Sakura meets Shikamaru’s eyes over the rim of her tea cup.  _ He feels it too.  _ It’s time to leave the young people to plot their own course now.

“I think our work here is done,” Shikamaru sighs, and rests his hand briefly atop his son’s dark hair.

“First and last meeting of the transition team?” Chocho laughs.

“Yep,” Sakura stands and stretches, joints popping. “The city’s in good hands.”

And it’s true. The days are drawing shorter and nearer to Chocho’s inauguration. Then it’ll be hands off. 

Sakura shunshins home to her quiet house. It’ll pay to get to bed early. Inochika will stay in the city for the inauguration, but Naruto, Sasuke, and Karin are off at first light for Uzushio.

_ That’ll be us soon _ , Sakura realizes as she slips into bed beside Ino. Maybe not Uzushio, but  _ somewhere _ , something new and interesting. She may be retiring, but she’s not old, not quite yet. 

That’s the thought that grips her, heart fluttering with excitement, as she drifts off to—perhaps—the best night’s sleep of her entire life.


	3. Naruto

Uzushio takes shape as peaceably as a dream forms in the blackness of sleep. It builds inconspicuously in it’s rural outposts among the rice fields until the farmlands drop off unexpectedly to reveal the colorful city spilling into the sea.

The idea was to build the houses on stilts to prevent the inevitability of flooding, with the secondary purpose of fostering a robust fishing culture. The citizens of Uzushio fish for their families and their neighbors, and no one is spared the task. Even the academics fish—and the most surprising thing about that isn’t the fact that even the educated live communally and by subsistence, but the fact that  _ somehow _ , without anyone noticing (except maybe Karin), Uzushio grew a university.

In Naruto’s younger and more fragile years, he once told Ino that he’d never be Hokage because he wasn’t very smart. True as that may have been, it was a notion that belied another truth that eluded Naruto then: when you start out with nothing, there’s infinite room to grow. Funny how he never had any trouble applying that manner of thinking to his physical growth, but finally,  _ finally _ Naruto is beginning to feel that there’s  _ potentiality  _ to his own mind. He’s taken every new course the university has rolled out—horticulture, history, pottery, chemistry, creative writing, chakra theory, economics… Sasuke is starting to get legitimately annoyed by Naruto’s voracious appetite for learning—he insists Sakura is meant to be the nerd among the three of them, but Naruto doesn’t care. In fact, Naruto dares Sakura to write a better short story or throw a pot more deftly than he can.

But of course, Sakura studied leadership at the side of Senju Tsunade.  _ That’s enough to learn for one lifetime, _ Naruto thinks. He hopes, foolishly, that Tsunade would be proud of him. And of course he  _ knows _ she’s proud of him—she told him as much the first time she came out to visit New Uzushio, and a hundred times besides. But that was then, and this is now—and she’s not here to tell him anymore, so he wonders all the same.

He’s so lost in thought that he hardly notices their descent into the city, and then suddenly Karin’s nudging him into a skiff which will take them through the canals.

“Oh,” Naruto remarks mildly.

“Yes, oh,” Karin teases. “You good?”

“Yeah,” Naruto responds, but he’s already zoning out to the rhythm of Sasuke’s poling.

They make their way unobtrusively through the floating markets, calling out greetings and stopping briefly every once in a while to hear news from the people of Uzushio. They say winter has been mild so far, but then it always is, here. 

The markets aren’t far from their house—that is, the house the three of them share with Jugo, Suigetsu, and previously, Inochika. Naruto really couldn’t give less of a fuck about the people who raise an eyebrow at the thought of a near-fifty-year-old living with roommates. He’s spent enough of his life alone—they all have.

Naruto does have to admit, however, that it’s an unexpectedly hostile welcome they’re subjected to when they moor their skiff and climb to the front door. Suigetsu, for one, is fuming. He fancies himself Inochika’s unnecessary fourth parental figure, which has always been hilarious on so many levels. Until now.

“What do you mean she’s not coming back? What’d you fucking  _ lose  _ her?”

“Leave it, Suigetsu,” Karin snarls. “The girl needs to spend time with her family.”

“We’re her family too!”

“I know,” Karin quiets down. “But let her be with her mothers. And for fuck’s sake, we just walked in the damn door, Naruto’s grieving. Leave it.”

Naruto swallows his retort. He doesn’t need to be coddled or defended, least of all from Suigetsu, who clearly just misses Chi as much as Naruto will once her absence fully sinks in.

Sasuke sighs and grabs Karin in one arm and Suigetsu in the other, leading them back towards the door. “Help unload,” he orders, and then it’s just Naruto and Jugo standing at the threshold. 

“I’m sorry about Tsunade. She was a good woman.”

That would be little comfort but for the fact that it came from Jugo, who’s probably the most genuine person Naruto’s ever met. But still, Naruto just claps him on the shoulder and says, “Enough, enough. I’ll have the rest of my life to think about her. I just want to settle in.”

Jugo angles himself just slightly so as to block Naruto’s path. “Don’t go upstairs yet.”

“Why?”

“Uh. There’s a kid up there.”

Naruto stills.  _ When it rains… _ “From where?”

Jugo shrugs. “Frost Country, maybe? He doesn’t know. He was traveling the coast with—we think—his grandfather. The old man must have just dropped one day, sick maybe, because a caravan found the boy keeping guard over the body, practically starving. The caravan was headed here, so they brought him along. And before you ask, they’re settled already—the ones who wanted to stay.”

Naruto exhales, relieved. “Thank you for handling that. And—jeez, the boy. How old?”

“Not quite four, we think.”

Uzushio doesn’t have an orphanage, and as long as Naruto has anything to say about it, they never will. The thought alone makes him shiver. They do, however, have an excellent network of families who are more than willing to take in children without homes. By all rights, the boy should already be placed with one such family. It’s obvious what happened here. “Couldn’t let him go, could you?”

Jugo’s eyes flash warm and red and fond. “That would be Suigetsu.”

“He’s getting more and more maternal as the years go by, you know.”

Jugo smiles and goes quiet for a moment. Finally, “We thought you two should meet the kid before we got him placed somewhere.”

“Which two?”

“You and Sasuke. This kid… he’s been through it. We thought maybe…”

_ Boy. Kid. Something’s not right.  _ “What’s his name?”

Jugo nods absently and looks toward the stairs. “He says he doesn’t have one.”

* * *

They come together that night in the dimly lit kitchen, and tucked under the glow of the only lamp, the argument begins.

“He should choose his own name. He’s been a victim of circumstance, he’s been powerless, Sasuke. Let him choose something for himself.”

Sasuke leaps up from his chair almost soon as he’s sat down in it, because this is the way things always turn out with them. He stalks forward and leans in close enough that Naruto can count the fine lines around his eyes. His hands come to Naruto’s shoulders, gripping, earnest. “A child can’t choose his own name.” He’s serious as anything, speaking slowly. He’ll only say this once, so Naruto leans in too, because he wants to understand. “For fuck’s sake he’s not even four, Naruto. Every kid deserves a parent to choose their name for them.” 

_ God damn it.  _ Naruto doesn’t understand, he  _ can’t  _ understand, though he wants to. “But he’s not a kid anymore, is he? He’s old, Sasuke, I see it. I remember it, feeling weak and powerless but still  _ old  _ inside, old as—”

They’re only a hair’s breadth apart when Sasuke kisses him, and yet they crash against each other so that it feels like a case of metamagnetism or something else Naruto learned about in class and didn’t really understand, but also on some level  _ knew _ —because he and Sasuke are the equal of any matter of itinerant electron scientific bullshit.

“He needs a name,” is all Naruto is able to concede once he can finally speak again, seconds or aeons later. 

“Shisui.”

“Sasuke?”

“It was always easier to love Shisui. He was easier. And then after everything. It’s easier to remember him too.”

It’s as simple as that, but something still holds Naruto back. 

“What is it?” Sasuke demands. “You think we’re too broken for children?”

“Maybe.”

“You’re going to outlive me. Naruto—” Sasuke presses, even as Naruto cringes away, because such a thing is  _ unthinkable.  _ “You’re going to outlive me. You deserve to have someone when I’m gone. I don’t want you to have to go scraping back to Konoha to find family.” After all these years, the vitriol is still there.

“Have you ever known me to scrape?” Naruto redirects.

“Well, that one time with the Raikage—ow!”

Naruto soothes the spot where he whacked Sasuke upside the head with smooth, steady strokes through his hair. “Asshole. If I scrape, it’s only ever for you.”

“That’s romantic, bootlicker.”

It’s enough then, to consider it decided. “Shisui,” Naruto tries.

“Shisui,” Sasuke agrees.

* * *

Parenting, as it turns out, is a fucking pain in the ass.

It’s not necessarily the part about dealing with a traumatized child that’s troubling them—they have expert doctors and child psychologists on hand in Uzushio, not to mention the wealth of experience with such things in their own household.

It’s the bloody daily labors that are killing them. They’ve got to interact with other _parents _so that Shisui has friends to play with (which is more of a Sasuke Problem than a Naruto Problem.) And they’ve got to feed the kid, and he’s _picky. _(Cooking—that’s unequivocally a Naruto Problem. All the cooking classes in the world wouldn’t make an ounce of difference on that front.)

And then there’s the nosy, hovery letters from Sakura and Ino. Sasuke and Naruto deliberately hadn’t told those two about the situation, had wanted to try this on their own before the girls came swooping in to micromanage the whole thing. But naturally, Sakura and Ino were ahead of the game. “Nara’s got spies in the city, I know it. Of course he shares intel with Yamanaka,” Sasuke mutters.

“Yeah, that or Karin told them. It’s not always a conspiracy.”

Sasuke just hums and continues peering at the letter. Naruto, on the other hand, resumes his previous activity which had been interrupted by the arrival of the aforementioned letter. It’s fine enough, on a warm winter’s day, to let that particular line of conversation die, to lie back on a blanket on the beach and watch Shisui’s chest rise and fall as he naps. He’s wearing an orange scarf hand-knitted by Naruto and his eyelashes flutter  _ just  _ so as he dreams.There’s nothing better that Naruto could think to look at.  _ Well, except _ ...

Sasuke sidles close to Naruto on the sand, finally through with his paranoid pacing. “Do you want to read it?” he asks, brandishing the letter.

Naruto sits up again to glance at it and figures it can wait. “Give me the highlights.”

“Chi’s going to stay with them in Suna for a while.”

“Good,” Naruto decides. “Good.”

“Sure,” Sasuke agrees, and breathes out a sigh which leaves Naruto’s lungs equally bereft. When they inhale again, they do so together.

They fall into this sometimes, this togetherness, when there are no more words to be exchanged.  _ Together, _ Naruto thinks.

Together they are breathing, they are smiling, they are sinking into each other.


	4. Ino

When Ino and Sakura left Konoha for the last time, Ino figured they’d never settle again. After a brief stop in Suna they’d be off again, improvising like they used to when they were young, the continent giving way beneath their restless feet.

The visit to Suna goes as expected—they just never do get around to leaving. 

Ino simply finds it impossible to tear herself away once she’s sunken her teeth back into the pomegranate heart of the city. 

And Sakura? Well, how could Ino ever have thought of her as a cosmos? She’s perennial, she blooms more beautifully, heartier, when she can put down good strong roots.  _ Not a cosmos, but a peony _ , Ino thinks—rather, swoons—it’s this Sunagakure desert heat, or all the freedom, maybe. It’s so easy to let the weeks slip into months in leisurely sunset teas with Gaara in the greenhouse, or occasional cigarettes shared with Temari in the wee hours of the morning. Ino fills and and empties her days sparring with clever, quick sand shinobi and fucking like she hasn’t fucked in years. There’s just a wholesome sort of vigor to this kind of living that’s so different from the static stress of Konoha. This is supposed to be her god damned renaissance, so Ino aims to enjoy every second.

And it feels so good, except for those times when she finds muscle memory catching up with her— the movement, the emotion—why do wonderful things remind her so much of the backbreaking labor of war, the burden of killing? 

It’s like this. One lazy afternoon, Sakura is eating Ino out with such selfless, supernatural effort, it’s like she thinks she can find the way to Ino’s soul through her clit. This happens almost every day, during the hours when it’s too hot to do anything but lay naked with the windows open, and of course one thing usually leads to another. Ino’s never been fond of routine, but for this she’ll make an exception. 

Today, though—maybe it’s something in the way the warm wind moves the curtains, or the catch of Ino’s own breath, or the sweat coating her palms as she grips the sheets—Ino falls headlong into a memory, gets stuck in it, can’t move away from it, so she moves away from Sakura instead, ripping at the sheets and scrabbling across the bed.

And the shittiest part of all? Is when Sakura slams the emotional shutters on her own face and becomes Dr. Haruno. 

It hurts her, Ino knows, though by all rights it shouldn’t. Sakura is a doctor, she knows what PTSD looks like. She was a soldier, she’s been there herself. But she’s still a human, a woman, a wife. It hurts.

“I’m sorry,” Ino says stupidly, meaninglessly. It’s not anyone’s fault. “I’m sorry. I remembered—my hands, it’s…” Ino holds them out in front of her, stiffly. “I remembered how sometimes during those weeklong campaigns we wouldn’t be able to stomach a single bite of food at the end of the day, you know? We’d make ourselves sick eating only chakra pills to keep fighting. But I always— _ always _ —had to wash my hands before I slept. I could have been starving, could have had blood matted in my hair but I always washed my hands. It was so hot that summer, everything would be tacky and stuck to me, all of the—I need to shower.”

“Go on,” Sakura says. “I’ll be in the kitchen with tea when you’re ready.”

The cool water does Ino infinite good, and she finds her peace again. This is how Ino has always been—she weathers troubles or else bucks up against them, depending on what the situation demands. She’s an old hand at choosing her battles now, and this has never seemed like one worth beating herself black and blue over. For other people, sure, it’s noble to go to war with your mind and come out on top. But it’s so fucking hard to do it for herself. She shuts the water off and flings on a robe and marches out to the kitchen.

“You’re going to tell me to go to therapy,” Ino says as she sits down and lets Sakura pour her a cup of strong black tea.

Sakura doesn’t smile, but it’s a near thing. “You know me pretty well.”

Ino would rather walk into the desert right now and start eating sand. She’s a Yamanaka. She gets inside people’s heads, not the other way around. But today is Thursday, and Sakura’s eyes are very green, and Ino knocks back her tea and says, “Fine. It’s just because we’ve got so damn much time on our hands now, this shit’s been rattling around in my brain. I’ll go.” 

“Thank you,” Sakura replies neatly. Never smug, never gloating.

“On one condition,” Ino clarifies. “If I have to go, Chi has to go. She’s… listless, have you noticed?”

“I’m worried too,” Sakura murmurs. “She’s sleeping too much and she’s not eating enough.”

Ino wrings her own hands. “She doesn’t make jokes anymore. If she does, they’re like—really not funny. Which is ridiculous, because she’s so funny. And I’ve been watching her train. She fights like she’s chasing a loss. She takes too many hits.”

“You should talk to her,” Sakura urges. “She won’t want to hear it from Doctor Mom. She needs to hear it from mom Mom.”

Ino grabs Sakura’s hand and kisses the palm. Together, their hands have never felt so clean. 

“You’re her mom Mom too. We’re equally mom Moms. No one Mom is more mom than the other. But fine. I’ll Mom tell her so you don’t have to Doctor tell her.”

Sakura closes her eyes, a little relieved, and maybe a little disappointed in herself. “Thank you. She’s depressed. It’s obvious. We should have done something sooner.”

“S’okay. I’m distracting you, I guess. Over here having fucking PTSD episodes on a perfect day.”

Sakura cracks just one eye open, goofily. The doctor’s out of office now. “Maybe I just suck at eating pussy.”

And Ino has to laugh, because never has something been so very, totally, and extremely untrue.

* * *

In the days that come and go, Ino begins to fear that the floodgates have been opened now that she’s acknowledged that maybe,  _ maybe, _ there are some not so good things in her head. There are nights when Ino wakes in the dark now, mouth agape and breathing like a beast, head swinging wildly to and fro as if suddenly unhinged from her neck, because something is there, something is looming. Then Sakura will shuffle closer in her sleep at Ino’s chakra spike, mumble  _ hush  _ and Ino will be human again, and in the morning they’ll sit at the table over scalding coffee and sweet sunlight and Sakura will ask her if she’s made a damn appointment yet, and Ino will make another promise to her kind and clever and practical lover. And she will, she really will make the appointment. Because Ino has PTSD. 

_ But _ . Ino won’t say it, not even to Sakura. There’s something else besides the trauma that takes shape at the edges of her mind now, something to do with that question she asked Tsunade,  _ not scared at all?  _ And it’s only in those snatches of panic in her dark bedroom when she hears those words floating through space and time that Ino recognizes that  _ something  _ as death. She may still paint her toenails girlish lavender and fight near as good as she did as a soldier and fuck like a champion but she’s getting old, her spun gold hair is fading to silver and it’s too much, too soon and too melancholy and too grim, so Ino will scoff at the whole thing and bloom again, a middle-aged sunflower once more. She’ll make the appointment. She’ll talk to Chi. She’ll make the appointment.

* * *

“Just talk to her,” Temari says, and punctuates her statement with a viper-quick blow from her side-hand to Ino’s solar plexus. 

“Bitch,” Ino gags, and sweeps Temari’s legs out from under her with a bo staff. Then, contemplatively, “It’s not that easy. What if she thinks I’m criticizing her? Or being condescending?”

“Okay, no backbone,” Temari grunts and flickers around Ino before throwing out a strike that doesn’t quite land.

Ino blocks lazily with the staff. “She’s my own blood and bone, my own chakra. She’s stubborn.”

Temari groans and spits out a half-hearted fūton that still manages to punt Ino a good 50 feet away, effectively ending both the spar and the discussion.

“If you don’t fill this parenting vacuum with advice,” Temari shouts across the sand, “I’m gonna tell my brothers that Chi’s interested in treating her depression with their brand of religious zealotry. Figure your shit out, Yamanaka.”

Ino scrubs sand grit from her eyes and stays down on the ground. She loves Gaara, and she’ll admit that in her younger years, his reverence for the gods of the desert was kind of a turn-on. But… no. Haruno Inochika is not going to spend her days sweeping sand and squinting at the sun with her father and Kankuro.  _ She’s made for more than that.  _

So Ino will talk to her. And she’ll make the damn appointment.

* * *

But it’s all easier said than done—because when you find yourself sitting across from your daughter on camp chairs in the tropical heat of the Godaime Kazekage’s greenhouse, and you’re fidgeting with anything within reach, it won’t matter what promises you made to Sakura, or Temari, or yourself. You’ll just be waiting for her to make the first move. 

She doesn’t. The kid reminds Ino of Choji sometimes. While Shikamaru would plot and plan in advance of an opening move, Choji would just act, or not. And that’s what Chi is doing right now—not acting. In fact, she’s practically napping, boneless as a cat in the sun. 

“Chi,” Ino finally says.

Inochika cracks an eye open. “What is it, Mom? I’m perfectly happy to sit here saying nothing, but you’re obviously—what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Ino groans. “Really, nothing. But are  _ you  _ okay? You haven’t been yourself. I’m sorry this looks so much like an intervention. It’s not what I was going for.”

When Chi rolls her eyes, she looks Yamanaka through and through. Ino searches for Gaara in her face and comes up with nothing but her dark red hair. The only thing foreign about her is her chakra signature, still so surprisingly exotic to Ino—a powerful sensor could never mistake Chi for anything other than a child of the Kazekage Clan. But other than that? Chi is a Konoha kid, by birth and by nature. It’s a relief to Ino for some reason. Much as they’ve both done their best to distance themselves from their home country, it’s still a relief. 

“Don’t roll your eyes,” Ino says, with no real heat behind it. “Your mother and I think you should talk to a therapist. That wouldn’t be so bad, would it?”

“Who are you trying to convince?” Chi deadpans. 

_ Ah. And there’s Sakura’s daughter.  _ Ino’s on the goddamn back foot, put there by a weaponless twenty-something. It’s unpleasant. “I have nothing to hide,” Ino levels, for lack of any other tactic. “I’m going to talk to someone too. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

Chi grimaces, and Ino braces herself for the push-back.

“You think I’m ashamed?” Chi asks.

Ino pauses, assessing. “Well—all I’m saying is that you have no reason to be.”

“I know,” Chi says, patiently. “It’s okay. I’m not.”

“Then what’s  _ wrong.” _

Chi just sighs, and pinches the petal off a camellia blossom. “You said that I haven’t been myself—what did you mean?”

It’s a trap, obviously. But they’re in this now, and Ino’s not going to retreat. “You used to  _ want  _ more.”

“What, when I was eight?” Chi scoffs. “And I wanted to learn every single jutsu and prove I was worth being the kid of two Kages? Or when I was eighteen in Uzushio and wanted to build houses and be invisible? Tell me what to want then, Mom, and how much. Tell me how to act more like myself and I’ll do it. I’m out of ideas.”

“You want to know what I think?” Ino knows she’s being baited, but she’s got no choice but to rise to it.

“Yes!” Chi practically shouts. “I’m not being fucking facetious—I want you to tell me because I don’t  _ know.” _

“You’re afraid of hard work,” Ino begins. “You’re naturally talented—and any shinobi as naturally talented as you were at age eight would want a taste of greatness. But something changed for you, right? When you figured out how different the privilege of being born gifted and the burden of being great are. We watched you back off from it once you saw the work that was ahead. And we were  _ okay  _ with it, because it didn’t matter to us whether you were great or not, whether you were better or stronger than we were, or whether you came up completely short of that. We didn’t have any expectations for you to be a great Shinobi, Chi. You were afraid of not living up to us, but for all we cared, you didn’t even need to  _ be  _ a Shinobi. You were a peacetime baby—if you weren’t interested in it, we certainly didn’t care if you stepped away. Why waste your whole youth in the Shinobi system when your mother and father and I suffered war and violence and politics and loss for you to have the freedom to do whatever made you happy? So I figured, good, fine, if she wants to make a safer, simpler life, let her. I figured there weren’t any complications building houses in Uzushio, right? It’d be so much easier to be happy that way. But you weren’t happy, were you? You’re not happy now, either. Chi,” Ino chokes out, “you’ve been walking around here like a corpse. Listen, I’m not going to be around forever, okay? I have to say this now, even if I don’t know if I’m saying the right thing to you right now. I’ve never been sure about this shit. There was only one path for me when I was your age—we had to fight a war, or we were going to die. Everything was at stake. But for you, now...it’s the opposite. There’s  _ nothing  _ at stake. There’s got to be some happy medium, right? There’s got to be  _ something.  _ If there’s never anything at stake for you, then I think nothing will ever matter. There’ll be no meaning in the little things you love—running through the desert, I don’t know, the perfect cup of coffee, right? Helping people you don’t even know. You’re so good, Chi. You have such a good heart. But it’s all for nothing if you don’t take a little risk, if you don’t have anything worth fighting for. I don’t want this for you. I want you to fight.”

Chi is weeping openly now, but Ino has to keep going, because this might only happen once. “We were afraid to pressure you when you were younger. You felt like you had this… birthright you were laboring under. It freaked me out, Chi, that you felt that way. So we let you hide yourself. But that was wrong. It wasn’t true that you couldn’t handle being who you are, that you weren’t strong enough to try for greatness, in whatever it was that you wanted to pursue. Shinobi or not, you are who you are. And you will never be anything less than my extraordinary daughter.”

Ino can’t stand it a second longer, so she lunges across the distance between them and bundles her daughter up in her arms. “I’m sorry,” Ino half-cries into Chi’s hair.

“I’m sorry,” Chi cries too, and they rock together back and forth like the great old trees in the forests outside of Konohagakure when the wind kicks up, only settling once they’ve cried themselves dry. 

“I don’t know where to start,” Chi finally admits.

Ino kisses the crown of Chi’s head and smiles. “Sounds like a pretty good place to begin.”

* * *

Ino doesn’t expect such a quick turnaround from their emotional catharsis, but then again, Chi tends to surprise her more often than not. It’s only the next morning that Sakura jostles Ino awake, sleepy herself, and mumbles, “Chi. Coffee.” 

Inochika is still futzing with the French press when Ino slinks into the kitchen, followed by Sakura, who’s looped around via the front hall with today’s edition of the Desert Daily. 

“I can’t believe you have that trash delivered,” Chi grumbles. “You’re a stateswoman for god's sake Mom, you should read the Kaze World-Herald.”

“Retired,” Sakura reminds them all, and smacks Chi with the rolled newspaper. It coaxes a smile out of Chi that has Ino swooping in to pinch their daughter’s cheek, helpless in the face of her cheeriness. 

Yesterday could have gone so wrong in so many ways. But it didn’t. So Ino just grabs mugs for them all and thanks whatever deity governs mother-daughter relationships. Maybe she’ll ask Gaara.

They drink their coffee in pleasant silence, while Chi reads over Sakura’s shoulder. “I admit they have a good book review section,” Chi concedes. 

“Mm—have you read the Shinobi’s Assistant yet?” 

“No. I’ll get around to it. I’m more into nonfiction these days. Investigative journalism.”

Sakura perks up. “Like Chocho’s husband?”

Chi glances at Ino. “Just like him, actually. We talked a lot about it when I was in Konoha. Gave me some ideas. I was thinking maybe I should follow through with them.”

Sakura puts the Daily down. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” 

“What, like writing?” Ino asks.

“Yep. It would be—hard work, you know?” Cho laughs a little conscientiously. “I want to write about civilian lives during the war. Really dig deep into it in a way that hasn’t been done before. I have for a long time.”

“We didn’t know,” Sakura says, quiet. 

Chi shakes her head. “It’s okay. I never said anything. Never thought I’d grow the balls to actually do anything about it.”

“I think it’s fucking brilliant,” Ino says. “It’s perfect.”

Sakura reaches out for both Ino and Chi’s hands. “I agree. Where will you start?”

Chi smirks, a little private smile for Ino, and shrugs. “Don’t know. But I’m going to start now.” She gets up, chugs down the rest of her coffee, and kisses her mothers. “I have some people to talk to in the lower village—but I want to hit the road in a couple days' time.”

“Oh,” Ino starts. “But what about—”

“Therapy?” Chi laughs. “I know. I’ll come back around to it. This takes priority.” She moves toward the door, then pauses. “But you should really make that appointment Mom.” And she’s gone.

_ Steamrolled. She just steamrolled us _ . “Amazing,” Ino says, into the sudden silence. “She’s amazing.”

“I guess your conversation went well yesterday?” Sakura shakes her head fondly.

Ino considers that for a moment. “Yeah”, she decides. She looks at their hands still twined together from before, and tries to figure out where one of them starts and ends, where the other begins. 

They weathered girlhood together in a time of violence, they made war and love, rebuilt a city, raised a child and let her go. Ino looks in Sakura’s eyes and can’t tell the difference between them anymore, two rough girls who became rough women with rough hands. “Yeah, I think it turned out pretty good.”

* * *

Ino’s learned by now that to make a life with not one but two former Kages is to sacrifice all privacy for the sake of the greater good. 

But Chi’s been gone not even twenty-four hours, and she’s enjoying time alone with Sakura. And for fucks sake, they’re hiking in the middle of the desert—as if it matters. Sakura is a bloody beacon even in the anonymity of the endless sand.

They’re squinting at an old map from under the shade of wide-brimmed straw hats—behaving, by wordless agreement, and for the sake of Chi’s new life-calling—like civilian tourists. But they are, ultimately, still Shinobi. They clock the incoming chakra signatures at nearly the same time.

“Northeast,” Ino determines immediately. There’s something familiar about it, but she’s no Karin—she can’t quite parse who it might be. For that matter, she’s no Sakura either, who simply unspools a tight little coil of chakra, seeking, and grins. “Aw,” she coos. “That’s nice. Haven’t seen him in a while.”

“Wow,” Ino snaps. “I am a Yamanaka you know, not some asshole who can’t sense a human from a dog. It’s not my fault you’re superhuman.”

“I guess you don’t want to know who it is then?” Sakura needles.

“Nope.” Ino decides, and sprawls petulantly on the desert floor. “I’ll just wait for the future to unfold. Chi would be proud.”

Sakura shrugs and sinks down next to her. It’s a wonderfully, joyfully juvenile argument. Ino is so in love.

“I guess we’ll wait then,” Sakura agrees.

It’s another twenty-five minutes or so before Ino springs to her feet in excitement. “Sai!”

“Took you long enough.”

Ino aims the laziest of kicks at Sakura’s stomach and takes off running.

Turns out, once they finally catch him, that he’s not alone. Ino never particularly understood the dynamic between Tenten and Sai, but she certainly can’t begrudge a kunoichi for picking up where Ino left off. And anyway, it’s been... decades.  _ Scary thought. _

Sakura nearly squeezes the life out of Sai once he’s within reach. “You’re killing me,” he deadpans. 

“Missed you,” Sakura mumbles into the juncture between his shoulder and neck. 

Sai peers at Ino over Sakura’s head. “Hello, ex-girlfriend.”

“How do you tolerate this long-term?” Ino drawls at Tenten by way of greeting.

The woman just winks. “You know why.”

“Ew,” Sakura jumps away from Sai and reaches out to wrap Tenten in a much calmer hug. “Gross.” 

“Sorry,” Tenten laughs. “Greetings between—what do they call that?”

“Spit sisters?” Ino cringes. “Are we twelve?”

Tenten ignores her and addresses Sakura. “We’re headed to Cedar Forest Country. Formality meetings over some new trade agreements. It’s been pretty much hammered out already.”

“What’s up?” Sakura inquires, all business.

“Common market stuff, but really, you know how it is with them.”

“Yeah,” Sakura says wryly, “I guess cedar wood furniture is going to be all the rage in Konoha this spring. Their economy will get plenty out of this and we’ll be able to give our redwoods and Yamato-Senpai a rest. But it's smart of Chocho to reach out to them. They’re good people, and we’ve got plenty of our own moving out that way, so it makes sense to open things up.”

“Mm,” Tenten fidgets. “There’s, uh—no way to segue into this but. We heard Naruto and Sasuke adopted.”

“Yes,” Sakura says, ready at the defense. “They did.”

“That’s.... fucking crazy,” Tenten says, “But great, really,” she covers once she sees Sakura bristle.

“I think it’s very gay of them,” Sai offers.

Ino cackles, and it’s like the two of them are twenty years old again.  _ Madman. _

“I’ll never understand why you two think that shit is funny,” Sakura scolds. “It’s not gay, it’s just  _ them _ .”

Sai raises an eyebrow at Ino. “She’s such a lesbian.”

“I know.”

And then Ino is holding back a flailing Sakura and Sai is leaping backwards in the sand as Tenten watches, bent over laughing.

It’s like this. Things change all the fucking time. For Ino, it feels like if she doesn’t keep watch over her feet, the world will pull the rug right out from under her, so damn focused as it is on turning when she’s only just figured out how to stand still. Everything... changes. She’s learning to manage.

But at the same time, when it comes to the small things—well. Nothing changes. Not ever, not even a little bit, not at all.


	5. Shikamaru

If you were to ask Nara Shiho what her husband does on Sunday mornings between the hours of six and 7:30 AM, she would tell you that he spends that time at the outskirts of the Nara Forest, sparring with his childhood friend Inuzuka Kiba.

If you knew either of them, you might question that.  _ They were never particularly close,  _ you might say.  _ Isn’t that a little odd?  _ And Nara Shiho would cock her head in confusion, tell you,  _ no, not at all,  _ her eyes flashing behind her thick glasses, and she would be on her mousy way. 

Of course, Nara Shiho is a genius. She knows just exactly what goes on at the outskirts of the Nara Forest.

If you were to ask Shikamaru what he does between those hours of six and 7:30 AM, he’d tell you the same thing. He spends that time at the outskirts of the Nara Forest, sparring with his childhood friend Inuzuka Kiba. And in Shikamaru’s defense, that’s always how it starts. It’s just in his nature to get off on a technicality.

And Shikamaru  _ always _ gets off. For that matter, so does Kiba.

If Shikamaru made a habit of lying to himself, he’d grumble that he’s getting too old for this, make a promise to himself, to Kiba, to Shiho, to  _ God  _ that he’d stop. But the truth is, Shikamaru thinks, with some sick degree of ass backwards satisfaction, there’s far too much comfort to be found in his vices to stop now.

And to that point, he peels his sticky self off of Kiba and lights up a cigarette. Shikamaru is half-self-conscious, half-amused to think he must look like something out of one of Hatake’s porn rags right now.

“Shit,” Kiba says, with a sound like gravel in his throat. He sits up and points an impartial finger at Shikamaru’s shoulder. “You’re bleeding there.”

Shikamaru cranes his neck around to look at the bite wound trickling red down his back. “Animal,” he accuses.

Kiba bares his teeth in a grin and starts to dress, languid where other men his age might be stiff. He dons a jounin’s standard issue pants, sandals, leather jacket, and no shirt whatsoever. He stoops to press a scalding kiss to Shikamaru’s shoulder, leaving a smear of blood at the corner of his own mouth.

“Anyway,” he says, the beginning of a thought and the end of one, and then he’s meandering off in the direction of the village with a swing in his step.

Shikamaru finishes his cigarette, then smokes another one for good measure. He collects the butts from the ground before he goes, as he does everyday. People will forgive all sorts of wrongs, he’s discovered. But the earth that bore the Nara remembers.

* * *

Choji and Shikamaru arrive at the cemetery together, from opposite directions. Choji has an armful, whereas Shikamaru’s just got the dirt under his fingernails. But the touch of their hands lingers familiar and steady as Choji passes over a still-hot to-go cup of coffee and they enter through the gates. 

It’s a weekly ritual. There was a time when Ino would join them, fresh-cut flowers in hand. Some days, if she was running late, she’d use a shunshin to cut her travel time. Sometimes her hair would still be a little damp from her shower. 

But that was then. Before she left. Before Shikamaru started fucking Kiba at the outskirts of the Nara Forest between six and 7:30 AM.

For better or for worse, it’s just the two of them. “Saw Kiba on the way here,” Choji says half-heartedly.

_ For worse, then. Troublesome.  _ “Yeah?”

Choji just shakes his head, abandoning the topic already. That suits Shikamaru just fine. No use wasting a day that started so pleasantly with bickering.

When they get to their fathers’ graves, Choji fishes some hard candies out of the bottom of his pocket and arranges them carefully on Chouza’s headstone as offering. Shikamaru, for his part, picks up a rock haphazardly, holds it tight in his fist until his palm is all sweaty, and sets it atop Shikaku’s grave.

Finally, they turn toward Inoichi, with silent, gaping emptiness between them. Choji casts his gaze around and eventually settles on a clump of half-wilted, mostly trampled dandelions. He squats down, admiring them. “Perfectly beautiful,” he assesses, and plucks them from the earth—roots, dirt, and all—for Inoichi.

“Yeah,” Shikamaru laughs, “Ino would  _ love _ that.”

“I meeeean…” Choji wheedles, “She would, actually. Do you know her or not?”

He’s still mad because he saw Kiba.  _ Akimichis.  _ They’re loyal to the end, even where they’re not wanted. “You’re fucking cracked,” Shikamaru rolls his eyes. “If I don’t know you guys, then I don’t know anything.”

Choji relents, quick as the sun cresting the horizon. “Ass,” he grumbles, grabbing for Shikamaru’s arm and tugging him away. “I didn’t say you didn’t know  _ me.” _

“I know Ino.”

“You don’t understand her then,” Choji muses, all philosopher-like, really putting on a show as he steers them towards the Sarutobi mausoleum. “You couldn’t have,” he elaborates, gesturing grandly, “Or you would have loved her then.”

Shikamaru stumbles, coughs, flustered. “Damn you, Choji.”

Choji cackles to high hell, breaking the somber silence all around them. “Got ‘em.”

* * *

The dead tend not to bring out the best in them. Shikamaru sometimes wonders how he and Choji have maintained the light-hearted companionship they have— god knows they share enough dearly departed to drive whole lifetimes of miserable mourning. 

It’s why Shikamaru breathes easier once they pass back through the cemetery’s gates. Here’s the thing.

Choji’s at peace with the space he’s had to make inside his chest for grieving. But there’s only so much real estate Shikamaru wants to spare. Trauma is a clever enemy, but if he learns it’s patterns, he can outsmart it. He’s reading like a textbook case of avoidance, but still… with every 6 AM fuck, every cigarette, he’s planning to inch his way towards the gloriously happy, incandescently inane, cloud-watching langour of his very early adolescence. 

_ That’s  _ what pisses Choji off, Shika supposes. Choji thinks he’s retrogressing. Well, Choji didn’t spend the better part of his 30s and 40s helping Sakura unspool the fabric of their society to try to weave it back into something humane. Something good. Choji’s had all sorts of world and time to sort himself out. 

Shikamaru’s not stupid. He’s the diametric opposite of stupid. He knows it’s all maladaptive coping because he hasn’t taken a fucking break since the war. He knows. So Choji can take his silent judgement and shove it.

As they walk to their favorite hookah bar—another Sunday ritual—Shikamaru’s mind revs and spins its wheels and gets royally stuck in the mud of emotional bullshit as he weighs the pros and cons of making a final effort to excuse his behavior. But by the time he can decide one way or another, they’re already seated deep among the plush cushions of the couch inside the bar and they’re puff puffing away. 

He’ll spill his guts another day, then. Choji’s pleased as punch with the change of scenery, and for Shikamaru it’s enough, now, to sit and waste time with his best friend.

Choji lets out one perfect  _ O _ of smoke. “Damn. It’s Sunday.”

“I know.”

“We forgot to get the dry-cleaning yesterday.”

“Well,” Shika shrugs. “There’s always tomorrow.”

* * *

Sundays ebb and flow like the Naka River. Shikamaru wakes up. He trains. He fucks Kiba. He meets Choji at the cemetery. They while away an hour or so smoking hookah. 

Time tends to slow after that, as Shikamaru floats through the afternoon until family dinner.

It’s always a mixed bag at the table. Some combination of Shikamaru, Shiho, Shikasuma, Shinya, Choji, Karui, Chocho, Mitsushige, Kurenai, and Mirai. It depends who’s around. More often than not, Chocho and Shinya are busy with the work of governing, and Mitsushige tends not to show up without his wife. Mirai will drop by if she’s not on a mission.

It’s one of those nights, tonight—just the older folks and Shikasuma—and Kurenai rarely stays long, never quite sure of her welcome without Mirai by her side.

It hurts—of course it does. But she still has a ragged, Asuma-shaped hole in her life. There’s no getting around it.

Shikamaru relaxes a bit once Kurenai excuses herself after dinner, and feels himself settling into the coming darkness. There’s little sound but the night frogs and the clink of glass as he sips dark rum on the porch with Choji and Shikasuma. The evening is heavy, and so is the digestif, and Shikamaru’s eyes begin to droop.

Until the screen door slams open to accommodate Karui, who picks up the bottle of rum with hardly a disapproving glance their way. Choji huffs a protest, beckoning his wife to join them.

“Someone’s gotta clean up,” she rebukes him, and swirls back through the door, taking a swig from the bottle as she goes.

She’s angry. Which means she’s in there having a serious conversation with Shiho.  _ Great. _

Shikasuma looks half-town between staying in her relaxed sprawl and fleeing the scene. Shikamaru watches it play out on his daughter’s face. Finally, she sighs, swallows down the contents of her glass, and stands. 

“You’re going?” Choji asks.

“Duh,” Shikasuma laughs. “No marital drama for me tonight. The night’s too young. Thanks for dinner Uncle Choji. See ya, Dad.”

It’s funny, she knows about the whole damned affair, but she’s so unbothered by it. There’s talk enough about flippancy as a function of this new generation, but Shikamaru knows—it’s a quality completely unique to her. She slips off into the night, and it makes him smile.

Which, naturally, makes Choji groan. “This is all your fault,” he says.

“Troublesome,” Shika mutters. 

“No dude, you’re fucking troublesome. I’m going to bed.” And with that, Choji trudges back into the house, screen door slamming, leaving Shikamaru alone and lonely on the porch. It’s almost enough to make Shikamaru wonder what the fuck is wrong with himself. But not quite. He’s a little drunk now, and the air is warm and heady, lush cricket-song all around him. 

Maybe he dozes a while, until the screen door snicks open once more, quieter this time. It’s Shiho, Karui lingering behind her. 

“Ready to go?” He asks his wife.

She nods, looking a bit unsteady herself.

Karui hums, rests a hand on Shiho’s shoulder. “You go on. Mind if I keep him for a game of chess?”

Shiho rubs her eyes behind her thick glasses and gives Karui a look that borders on inscrutable. 

“Okay,” she finally says. “He’s all yours.” She offers Shikamaru a private smile, a little sharp at the edges, different.  _ “Good luck,”  _ she mouths, and steps off the porch and out onto the walk.

Shikamaru watches her go. “What was that about?” He asks, as soon as he knows Shiho’s out of earshot. 

Karui goes about setting the board up on a card table, as if he hadn’t even spoken. 

Shikamaru groans inwardly. She’s gearing up for a serious game. Chess is the game of choice in Kumo, and Karui’s no slouch. If it were shogi, Shikamaru could win even dead drunk—but it’s not, so Shikamaru sits down and gets to work.

“What do you think it’s about?” Karui responds, whole minutes later, jarring him out of his focus.

_ Women.  _ “Fine.” Shikamaru pushes back from the table—physical and mental distance from the game. “I think our marriage is fine, I think Shiho is  _ fine _ , but you’re getting in her head, trying to make her out to be a victim. She’s tougher than you think. She doesn’t need to be coddled. You’ve always done that.”

Karui looks fierce enough to call lightning down from the sky. But she waits, shoulders moving up and down with her breath. Her attention flickers back to the game for a moment, and she considers the whole of the thing before boldly sliding a bishop along half the board. 

“I’m not coddling her.  _ Coddling,”  _ she scoffs. “Do you even hear yourself, do you know how insulting that sounds? I’m trying to help her, yes, like I always have. Everyone needs help sometimes, Shikamaru. Do you hear me?”

“Sure, sure.” He hesitantly scoots his chair back towards the board, sick of this already, sick of being schooled—as if he doesn’t know his wife. As if he doesn’t know himself. “You’re right,” he concedes a sliver of ground, just to end the whole thing. “I shouldn’t have used the word  _ coddled.” _

“Yeah. And while we’re at it—don’t you ever try that  _ she’s tougher than you think  _ nonsense again. That’s some of the hottest garbage that I’ve ever heard come out of your mouth. I know exactly how tough she is, and in fact I think you’re the one who’s got no damn clue. I’m not letting you off of this just because you’re serving me platitudes.”

Shikamaru massages his temples. “Okay.” The game moves along, the cicadas sing. 

“What do you think makes her so tough then?”

_ Christ.  _ “So I’m allowed to talk?”

“Shikamaru,” Karui snaps, pushing the board away. “As your kin, I am asking you to take this seriously. Look at me.”

He looks, obviously. Emotions may not be his strength, but he’s not too dense to see that he’s out of control. “I’m listening.”

“Have you even considered the fact that you have absolutely fucking put her through it?”

_ Yes.  _ “It’s not—I’m not  _ putting… _ okay, does it have to be me putting her through anything? Me fucking an old friend is not a referendum on her. It’s not about her at all, seriously, it’s about me. It’s separate from her. It’s my own mistake to make, if I want to.”

Karui groans and drags her chair around to his side of the card table, takes up his hands and squeezes them. There’s no comfort in the gesture. She’s just imploring him. 

“You were so noble when I first met you, you know that? It was almost  _ annoying  _ how selfless you were. What the fuck happened?”

The bare lightbulb overhead flickers a touch, and the shadows deepen and pulse in time with his pathetic heart. There are systems of logic Shikamaru might employ—dialectical, argumentative— to work this thing out with Karui. But everything is fleeing him, the pieces on the board are just chunks of stone with no inherent meaning, and he doesn’t know, so he says, “I don’t know.” The whole day suddenly feels like it’s been going on for centuries. “I did my time with that, didn’t I? Don’t I…?” He laughs. He feels stupid, cut lose. “Don’t I get a reward? Aren’t I allowed a little foolishness, a little obscenity? Everyone else is doing it.”

“Is that what you think the record of your life is? Sacrifice and reward? The past is full of shit that happened to you and now you want to act  _ obscene? _ What in the hell? That’s not how it works. Love is the only record, you ass. Why are you crying?”

“Christ, woman,” Shikamaru pulls one of his hands away from Karui’s stony grip to scrub across his tired face. “You’re  _ making  _ me cry.”

“Does Choji not talk to you like this anymore? He never questions you? Don’t shrug. Listen,” Karui repeats for the thousandth time, and god damn, he’s listening okay? He’s listening like he’s never listened before.

Karui releases his other hand at last, sits back a bit, and levels him with the  _ coup de grace _ . 

“I didn’t have much in Kumo, but it was home. I didn’t have family, or a clan, just me and Omoi and my Sensei, but that was all I needed. I left them to be here with Choji, and that’s no small thing to do. You and Shiho and Choji and our kids are all that I have here. Don’t fuck it up for me. Please.”

Shikamaru knows truths are often less virtuous the more you dig down deep into them.  _ She’s scared for herself, for her friendships, for the life she’s built here. _

“I miss Ino,” he says, because it’s not a non sequitur, not really. The truth can be easy, easy as lying, when shared with a friend.

“I know,” Karui nods, just a bit, because she’s hanging her head like she’s ashamed of what she’s said. She’s got nothing to be ashamed of. Shikamaru’s never felt closer to her. 

“Choji misses her too,” she goes on, heedless. “Hell, I even miss her. But she’s not here. Shiho is. Do something about it.”

“Look,” Shikamaru says, drawing her attention back to the board. “I’m checked.”

Karui narrows her eyes. “I didn’t—”

“Sure you did,” he interrupts, “you won. Congrats. I’m going home.”

Karui picks up Shikamaru’s untipped king and peers at it while he jogs down the stoop. He’s halfway through the gate when he thinks to say, “I love you.”

“Love you too, brother,” she says, tearing her gaze away from the king. She tosses the stone piece back to him, through the dark. She’s inside before he reaches out to accept the king falling perfectly, marvelously into his hand. She’s gone and he’s left with nothing but the sound of the screen door clicking shut, the final flickering of the porch light before it goes dark.

Shikamaru picks his way home through the quiet city streets, one block at a time, one foot in front of the other.

The lights are still on at home, but he doesn’t hesitate, just breezes straight through the door, bone-tired and guileless. Shiho’s at the kitchen table, tea-cup steaming as she pours over some work—a wicked-looking ciphertext she’s painstakingly running through what must be one encryption after another after another.

“Transposition cipher?” Shikamaru asks of the most recent iteration, and sinks down into a chair next to her. Not across. “I didn’t think you’d still be up.”

“Columnar transposition, yes.” Shiho shifts a bit to see him better and puts aside her papers and calculator. “I wasn’t tired yet.”

“Me neither,” Shikamaru lies, because he doesn’t actually want to sleep, not at all. He doesn’t want today to become yesterday yet. Doesn’t want to let it slip away into all the shit in the past like Karui said. He wants to hold up this day, hold onto it, relive it till he gets it perfect, set the record straight.

He feels small in front of Shiho—her numbers and her code. He feels smaller still when he thinks of the scant hours between now and the last time he met Kiba at the outskirts of the Nara Forest. Worse than that, the next time. No.

“What time does the dry-cleaners open tomorrow?” he asks.

Shiho lifts her tea cup to her mouth and drinks it down before she answers, “Six AM.”

“Right. You busy?”

Her lip twitches. “No. You?”

“Nah,” he says, and he could laugh too. He might, even. He reaches across the small distance between them to pluck Shiho’s smudged glasses from her face. He cleans them gently with the edge of the tablecloth. “Want to go together?”

This time she does huff out a little laugh. “The dry-cleaners, huh?” She lets him sweat it out a minute while she reaches across the table for her calendar book and makes a big show out of checking it over. “Sure,” she decides, at last. “We’ll go together.”

She takes her glasses back and settles them on her nose, puts the tea cup in the sink unwashed, and leaves her work on the table, fluttering under the ceiling fan.

Shikamaru watches her, doesn’t move until she finally pauses by the light switch. “Coming?” She asks him.

“Coming,” he echoes, and she flicks the switch and the kitchen falls to darkness.

The shadows coil tighter around their house. Snug. Comforting. They follow Shiho up the stairs. They coax Shikamaru’s hand into his pocket. The king. He places it on his wife’s work to still the rustle of the parchment under the slowing fan. He follows her to bed.


End file.
